Summer in February

Are you already wondering what your January is going to look like now that Downton Abbey’scoming back without leading man Matthew Crawley? Not to worry though – you can still get your Dan Stevensfix this winter when his latest period drama (finally) gets a US release.

According to Variety, Tribeca Film has acquired the US rights to romantic drama Summer in February, which stars Stevens alongside Dominic Cooper and Emily Browning. The film is a period drama set on the eve of World War I and Stevens plays a character who is agonizing over his feelings regarding a woman he can’t have. Sound familiar? Yeah, this could prove a more than adequate Downton substitute for those of us suffering from Matthew withdrawal.

The film is based on the Jonathan Smith novel of the same name and tells the story of the dramatic real-life love triangle between painter Alfred Munnings (Cooper), his best friend Gilbert Evans (Stevens) and fellow artist Florence Carter-Wood (Browning).

Dan Stevens has been keeping pretty busy since his departure from Downton Abbey – he’s been cast as a hacker opposite Benedict Cumberbatch, a drug dealer opposite Liam Neeson, he’s done some theater opposite an Academy Award nominee, and he’s scored a new TV gig for later this year (in the new adaptation of Swallows and Arrows).

And also apparently he's undergone a rather drastic makeover. He’s lost a significant amount of weight – somewhere in the range of thirty pounds so he says – and has also done something rather jolly with this hair. (It be fair, it’s not as dark as he had originally had for that film with Neeson, called A Walk Among the Tombtones, but it’s kind of a seriously dramatic shift.).

Stevens appeared on the BBC teatime chat show The One Show last week to promote his new movie Summer in February in which he plays a character who is freakishly like Matthew Crawley, but since we’re all going to go swoon over this movie as soon as it manages to get released in America, let’s ignore that.

Stevens talks a bit about saying goodbye to Downton, his upcoming film roles and has a rather adorable exchange with one of his former teachers, who also happens to be the guy that wrote the book Summer in February. And before you ask, yes, the One Show hosts are generally always like this.

Are you missing Downton Abbey’s Matthew Crawley? Has the fact that star Dan Stevens changed his hair dramatically upset your day? Well, then, do I have the movie for you – Stevens' latest upcoming project is a film called Summer in February, and it’s a period drama set on the eve of World War I, in which Stevens plays a character who is agonizing over his feelings regarding a woman he can’t have.

Sound familiar, Matthew fans?

The film is based on the Jonathan Smith novel of the same name and tells the story of the dramatic real-life love triangle between painter Alfred Munnings (Dominc Cooper), his best friend Gilbert Evans (Stevens) and fellow artist Florence Carter-Wood (Emily Browning). As you can see from the trailer below, Summer in February appears to feature a lot of angst and drama and crossed romantic signals and everything that we’re all missing in a world without Downton at the moment.